PARIS: France plans to recognize a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the Israel-Palestinian conflict, President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.
鈥淲e must move toward recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,鈥� Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.
鈥淥ur aim is to chair this conference with 萝莉视频 in June, where we could finalize this movement of mutual recognition (of a Palestinian state) by several parties,鈥� he added.
鈥淚 will do it (...) because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognize Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,鈥� he added.
Such recognition would allow France 鈥渢o be clear in our fight against those who deny Israel鈥檚 right to exist 鈥� which is the case with Iran 鈥� and to commit ourselves to collective security in the region,鈥� he added.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonizing Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.
In Egypt, Macron held summit talks with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordan鈥檚 King Abdullah II.